Composer: Joseph Bodin de Boismortier, Marc-Antoine Charpentier, Henry Desmarest, André Cardinal Destouches, George Frideric Handel, Jean-Baptiste Lully
Performer: Le Concert Spirituel
Conductor: Hervé Niquet
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Glossa
Catalogue: GCD921613
Release: 2007
Size: 323 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: cover
Charpentier: Marche de triomphe et air, H. 547
01. I. Marche de triomphe
02. II. Second air de trompette
Desmarest: De profundis (Excerpts)
03. I. De profundis clamavi ad te
04. II. Fiant aures tuae intendentes
05. IX. Requiem aeternam
Destouches: Callirhoé (excerpts)
06. Ouverture
07. Premier air pour les faunes
08. Deuxième air
09. Par ta puissance
10. Symphonie
11. Loin de nous les plaintes
12. Princesse, aimez nos bocages
13. Premier air des bergers
14. Bourée
Charpentier: Te Deum, H. 146 (Excerpts)
15. I. Prélude
16. VI. Tu devicto
17. X. In te, Domine
Boismortier: Sonata à 4 in A Minor, Op. 34 No. 6
18. I. Adagio
19. II. Allegro
20. III. Largo
21. IV. Allegro
Lully: Proserpine, LWV 58
22. Ouverture
23. Proserpine? Respondez-vous?
Boismortier: Daphnis et Chloé, Op. 102 (Excerpts)
24. Musette
25. Tambourin
26. Vents orageux
27. Ballet
28. Chaconne
Handel: Water Music Suite No. 1 in F major, HWV348: excerpts
29. I. Ouverture – II. Adagio e staccato
30. III. Allegro
This music serves as the soundtrack to the Les Grandes Eaux spectacle which takes place in the parks at Versailles from April to September. Over the past twenty years concerts have been given to the accompaniment of the numerous, and spectacular, fountains in full ‘flow’. For 2007, celebrating the ensemble’s 20th anniversary, Hervé Niquet and Le Concert Spirituel have been asked to present a musical spectacle to capture the grandeur of the age.Their selection, produced by Glossa, embraces composers such as Charpentier, Desmarest, Boismortier and also that dominating figure of Jean-Baptiste Lully (with previously unheard extracts from Lully’s tragédie en musique Proserpine). Accompanying the recording there is a fascinating article about the theatre, dance and music-making that used to take place under the patronage of the French kings and their court during the reign of Louis XIII and his successors. Nor has the visual exuberance of the times been ignored in the sumptuous packaging, which includes historical pictures of the fountains.